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February 28, 2011
From Bone Marrow to Saffron
Learning how to make risotto at home was one of the more liberating experiences of my early culinary career. The idea that I could create a perfectly legitimate risotto by just buying arborio rice and stirring like mad, was enough to make me wonder what else I couldn’t cook. I’m not going to say it single-handedly helped launch this blog and my writing career, but it was crucial. It was the moment that I looked around the...
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February 22, 2011
Nick eats lunch at home everyday, usually scrounging up leftovers in his fridge into some kind of new creation. He'll post about more successful attempts.
After making a big batch of beef broth for the best risotto of my life, I was also left with an insane amount of poached beef. Though a simple beef sandwich with horseradish would have worked, I instead decided to make a modified Italian Beef. Not 100% successful, but still delicious.
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February 17, 2011
And: Should Risotto Spread?
If you’re a Top Chef junkie like me then you probably remember that Tre got kicked off episode 8 this season after serving a risotto that didn’t “spread.” At least, that’s what judge Tom Colicchio said. It’s always hard to know exactly why contestants are booted off the show when you can't taste the food, but this was one of those cases where you could visibly see that his risotto sat up in a bowl...
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November 8, 2007
Back when I was writing about corn risotto and the magical risotto pancake, I was kicking around the Internet trying to discover exactly how to make one correctly. Recipe after recipe called for a very specific risotto preparation, one I'd never even heard of, something called Risotto alla Milanese, or Milan-style Risotto. It's flavored with chicken or beef stock, a simplified base of only sauteed onions and olive oil, and this...
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The other day I was watching Iron Chef and Lidia Bastianich was a judge on the show. I'd never seen her in this role, and, frankly, it was scary. The woman is a strange blend of passion and unsmiling seriousness. Generally people who love food are laid back and groovy, and enthusiasm is usually tempered with a good dollop of sheepish self-consciousness: "I know I'm obsessed, and it makes me a dork, but I'm so excited I...
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September 26, 2006
On Sunday night, I was subconsciously looking for a kind of willing-the-weather-to-change activity. After a cool week of light sweaters and no sweating on the subway platform, Saturday and Sunday heralded the return of muggy weather, which was very unwelcome. The threat of rain provided sufficient justification for me to hole up and read and watch movies all weekend (save a trip to Bensonhurst to nab some homemade ravioli and salamis)--in...
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January 21, 2006
Trust this recipe, and never lose faith: it is actually quite simple, and can be used as a launching point for lots of other inspired ideas.
I remember vividly the first time I thumbed through a cookbook with a sense of purpose. I was home on a break during my freshman year of college, and my mom had been relating to me her excitement about a book my sister sent from London. She excitedly exclaimed that “it had even been autographed.” I smiled and nodded approvingly, unaffected. It was a cookbook, after all. My sister worked at a Hyatt in...
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